Chinese Conversion to Evangelical Christianity:
The Importance of Social and Cultural Contexts


This paper is being published by the scholarly journal of
Sociology of Religion in 1998

ABSTRACT

Existing sociological theories of conversion, mostly based on studies of individuals into cults, are inadequate to explain the growing phenomenon of conversion to evangelical Protestantism among new immigrant groups from Latin America and Asia. Christianity is not a traditional religion of the Chinese. However, as many as 32% of Chinese in the U.S. today are Christians. Many Chinese church members are adult converts from non-Christian family backgrounds. Factors of individual personality, personal crisis, and interpersonal bonds in small networks cannot adequately explain this recent wave of Chinese conversion to evangelical Protestantism. Based on interviews and ethnographic observations in Chinese churches in the Greater Washington, D.C., area, I analyze the significance of various factors of conversion among my sample of Chinese immigrants. I find that assimilation motives cannot explain their conversion; social and cultural changes in China in the process of passive modernization are the crucial factors explaining their conversion; Chinese responses to modernity are also contributing factors; and institutional factors are of secondary importance. This study also contributes to ongoing debates concerning the reasons for and sources of growth among conservative Christian churches in the U.S.

November, 1997

Fenggang Yang, Ph.D.
Department of Sociology
University of Houston

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